Gareth John Evans
AC,
KC (born 5 September 1944), is an Australian politician, international policymaker, academic, and barrister. He represented the
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms th ...
in the
Senate and
House of Representatives from 1978 to 1999, serving as a
Cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filin ...
Minister in the
Hawke and
Keating governments from 1983 to 1996 as
Attorney-General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
,
Minister for Resources and Energy,
Minister for Transport and Communications and most prominently, from 1988 to 1996, as
Minister for Foreign Affairs
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...
. He was Leader of the
Government in the Senate from 1993 to 1996, Deputy Leader of the
Opposition from 1996 to 1998, and remains one of the two longest-serving federal Cabinet Ministers in Labor Party history.
After leaving politics, he was president and
chief executive officer
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of the Brussels-based
International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009. On returning to Australia he was appointed in 2009 honorary professorial fellow at the
University of Melbourne. He has served on a number of major international commissions and panels, including as co-chair of the
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was an ad hoc commission of participants which in 2001 worked to popularize the concept of humanitarian intervention under the name of "Responsibility to protect". The Commis ...
(2000–01) and the
International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (2008–10). Evans has written extensively on
international relations and legal, constitutional and political affairs, and has been internationally recognised for his contributions to the theory and practice of mass atrocity and conflict prevention, arms control and disarmament.
From 2010 to 2020, Evans was the
Chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
of the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
(ANU). He was appointed an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the ANU in 2012. He currently is a member of the Board of Sponsors for the ''
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' is a nonprofit organization concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity. The ''Bulletin'' publishes conte ...
''.
Early life and education
Evans was born in
Melbourne,
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seyche ...
. His father was a tram driver, and his mother, who had been a wartime
Woolworths store manager, ran a small baby-wear business from home. He was educated at
Hawthorn West Central School (1950–57);
Melbourne High School, where he was school captain (1958–61); the University of Melbourne (1962–67) where he graduated with a
Bachelor of Arts and
Bachelor of Laws
Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Ch ...
with First-Class Honours, sharing the Supreme Court Prize, was a Member of the
Melbourne University Law Review
The ''Melbourne University Law Review'' is a triannual law journal published by a student group at Melbourne Law School covering all areas of law. It is one of two student-run law journals at the University of Melbourne, the other being the '' ...
and was President of the
Students Representative Council
{{Unreferenced, date=July 2014A students' representative council, also known as a students' administrative council, represents student interests in the government of a university, school or other educational institution. Generally the SRC forms par ...
from 1964 to 1966; and
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College (, ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 ...
(1968–70), where he attended on a
Shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard o ...
scholarship and graduated with a Master of Arts with First-Class Honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).
Career
In 2004, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of
Magdalen College
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the ...
, his alma mater at Oxford.
From 1971 to 1976, he was law academic at the University of Melbourne, teaching crime, torts, civil liberties law and federal constitutional law, and becoming a prominent commentator on legal issues, especially at the time of the dismissal of the
Whitlam Government in 1975. In 1977 he edited ''Labor and the Constitution'' 1972–75, a collection of essays on constitutional issues arising during the life of the Whitlam Government, and later co-authored ''Australia's Constitution'', arguing for major constitutional reforms. From 1976 to his entry into the Parliament he practised full-time as a barrister, specialising in industrial law, and appellate argument, and became a Queen's Counsel (in Victoria and the
ACT) in 1983.
Evans was active in civil liberties issues from his student days on, campaigning on issues such as
censorship,
capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
, the
White Australia
The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting in ...
policy,
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid wa ...
and
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregnan ...
law reform. He was a long-serving vice-president of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty Victoria), and an active executive member of the
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.
During the Whitlam Labor Government, he acted as a consultant to Aboriginal Affairs Minister
Gordon Bryant
Gordon Munro Bryant (3 August 1914 – 14 January 1991) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and represented the Division of Wills in Victoria from 1955 to 1980. He served as Minister for Aboriginal ...
, advising on Indigenous land rights and legal services issues, and Attorney-General
Lionel Murphy
Lionel Keith Murphy QC (30 August 1922 – 21 October 1986) was an Australian politician, barrister, and judge. He was a Senator for New South Wales from 1962 to 1975, serving as Attorney-General in the Whitlam Government, and then sat on the ...
, where he was closely involved in drafting the ''Racial Discrimination Act 1975'' and the (unsuccessful) Human Rights Bill 1973. He was appointed by Murphy as a foundation member of the
Australian Law Reform Commission
The Australian Law Reform Commission (often abbreviated to ALRC) is an Australian independent statutory body established to conduct reviews into the law of Australia. The reviews, also called inquiries or references, are referred to the ALRC by ...
, chaired by Justice
Michael Kirby, and was primarily responsible for the commission's 1975 report on ''Criminal Investigation''.
Evans joined the Australian Labor Party while at University of Melbourne and became actively involved after his return from Oxford in 1975, joining the centrist
Labor Unity
The Labor Right, also known as Modern Labor, is a political faction of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) at the national level that is characterised by being more economically conservative and, in some cases, more socially conservative. The Labor ...
faction and working closely with its leaders including
Clyde Holding
Allan Clyde Holding (27 April 193131 July 2011) was an Australian politician who served as Leader of the Opposition in Victoria for ten years, and went on to become a federal minister in the Hawke Government.
Early life and education
Holdin ...
, Peter Redlich and Ian Turner – and Bob Hawke, whose ambition to lead the party he strongly supported. He was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the Senate in 1975, but was elected in 1977 and took his seat in 1978.
Parliamentary and ministerial career
Opposition, 1978–1983
As a young backbencher, Evans was one of the two parliamentarians chosen to sit – along with international architects
I. M. Pei
Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners ( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...
and
John Andrews – on the Parliament House Competition Assessment Panel which in 1979 chose the winning design for the new
Australian Parliament House
Parliament House, also referred to as Capital Hill or simply Parliament, is the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia, and the seat of the legislative branch of the Australian Government. Located in Canberra, the Parliament building is ...
.
In his first years in the Senate, Evans focused strongly on legal and constitutional reform issues, attracting early attention with his series of attacks on
Sir Garfield Barwick
Sir Garfield Edward John Barwick, (22 June 190313 July 1997) was an Australian judge who was the seventh and longest serving Chief Justice of Australia, in office from 1964 to 1981. He had earlier been a Liberal Party politician, serving as a m ...
, for potential conflict of interest between his role as the
Chief Justice of the
High Court and his involvement in his family company Mundroola. After the October 1980 election he was promoted to the Opposition front bench in 1980, becoming Shadow Attorney-General.
Evans played an active part in ALP National Conferences during this period seeking to modernize the party's platform, in particular the language of the "socialist objective", and within the Parliamentary Party in developing a detailed "transition to government" strategy. He supported Bob Hawke's leadership challenge against
Bill Hayden
William George Hayden (born 23 January 1933) is an Australian politician who served as the 21st governor-general of Australia from 1989 to 1996. He was Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 1983, and served as ...
in 1982 which led ultimately to Hayden resigning just hours before
Malcolm Fraser announced the March
1983 election and Hawke leading Labor to victory.
Attorney-General, 1983–1984
As Attorney-General, Evans undertook a large agenda for law reform on a range of issues. He immediately ran into controversy, arranging for the
Royal Australian Air Force
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colours =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
to take surveillance photos of the
Franklin Dam
The Franklin Dam or Gordon-below-Franklin Dam project was a proposed dam on the Gordon River in Tasmania, Australia, that was never constructed. The movement that eventually led to the project's cancellation became one of the most significant ...
project in
Tasmania. The Hawke government was pledged to (and ultimately did) stop the project, over the objections of the Tasmanian Liberal government, on the ground that it endangered a
World Heritage listed area. The Hawke government was accused of misusing the RAAF for domestic political purposes, and Evans's use of RAAF planes led to his earning the nickname "
Biggles
James Bigglesworth, nicknamed "Biggles", is a fictional pilot and adventurer, the title character and hero of the ''Biggles'' series of adventure books, written for young readers by W. E. Johns (1893–1968). Biggles made his first appearanc ...
", after
Captain W. E. Johns's fictional aviation hero – a self-inflicted wound, following his remark to journalists at the time "whatever you do, don't call me Biggles". This incident also led to Evans coining the expression "streaker's defence" (i.e. "it seemed like a good idea at the time"), which has entered the Australian vocabulary. More serious controversy surrounded the Government's handling of national security issues including the
Combe-Ivanov affair and the attempted suppression of publication of leaked documents by journalist Brian Toohey, and the allegations of impropriety made against High Court Justice Lionel Murphy, all of which created stress for Evans as an avowed civil libertarian. He achieved a number of reforms, including the establishment of the
Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions
The Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions or, informally, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) is an independent prosecuting service and government agency within the portfolio of the Attorney-General of A ...
and the
National Crime Authority
The National Crime Authority (NCA) was an Australian law enforcement agency established in 1984 and wound up on 31 December 2002. History
The NCA was set up in 1984 in the wake of the Costigan Commission, which investigated tax evasion and org ...
, the strengthening of the Family Law and ''Freedom of Information Act'', and some business regulation changes, but failed in his attempts to achieve uniform national
defamation law, a legislative bill of rights, and constitutional reform. In a demotion following this mixed record, Hawke moved him to the less sensitive portfolio of Resources and Energy after the
1984 election.
Resources, energy, transport and communications, 1984–1988
In the two major industry portfolios he held over the next five years, Evans was generally perceived as playing himself back into the government mainstream. As
Minister for Resources and Energy from 1984 to 1987
he won industry support for his role in rescuing from possible collapse of the huge
North West Shelf
The North West Shelf is a continental shelf region of Western Australia. It includes an extensive oil and gas region off the North West Australia coast in the Pilbara region.
Geology
Considerable parts of the region are the highest prospective ...
gas project, managing the Australian fallout from the
crash in world oil prices in 1986, and seeking to strike a workable balance, between resource sector and competing interests, on
uranium mining, the environment and Aboriginal land rights.
As
Transport and Communications minister in 1987–88,
he was involved in some controversy with the
Australian Broadcasting Commission
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
over funding guarantees and charter reform, but primarily concerned with issues at the heart of the government's micro-economic strategy: major airline deregulation, and the reform of government business enterprises in the telecommunications and other sectors, designed to corporatize their commercial practices, as a necessary prelude to the privatisation that later followed.
Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1988–1996
Evans was appointed Foreign Minister in September 1988,
after his predecessor
Bill Hayden
William George Hayden (born 23 January 1933) is an Australian politician who served as the 21st governor-general of Australia from 1989 to 1996. He was Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 1983, and served as ...
retired to become
Governor-General. He held the position for seven years and six months, the longest-serving Labor minister in that portfolio. He became a well-known Foreign Minister and highly regarded internationally, and continues to be regarded as one of Australia's most successful. The Hawke and Keating governments were committed to shifting emphasis from Australia's traditional relationships with the
United States and the
United Kingdom to increased involvement with
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
n neighbours, particularly
Indonesia and
China, and were strongly committed to multilateral diplomacy both globally and regionally.
Evans brought a strongly structured and analytical approach to foreign policymaking and is credited with significant innovative thinking in his articulation, in particular, of the concepts of middle power and niche diplomacy, "good international citizenship" as a national interest, and cooperative security (see "Contributions to international relations thinking", below).
His most widely acknowledged successes as foreign minister were his initiation of the UN peace plan for
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...
, and the roles that he and Australia played in bringing to fruition the International
Chemical Weapons Convention
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), officially the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, is an arms control treaty administered by the Organisation for ...
and establishing both the
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC ) is an inter-governmental forum for 21 member economies in the Pacific Rim that promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region. (APEC) forum and the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Major contributions to international agenda setting, though not bearing much immediate fruit, were his book on UN reform launched in
New York City in 1993, and his initiation with Paul Keating of the
Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Evans famously became the first person to drop the
f-bomb
''Fuck'' is an English-language expletive. It often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to arou ...
in the
Australian Parliament
The Parliament of Australia (officially the Federal Parliament, also called the Commonwealth Parliament) is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch (represented by the governor-gen ...
, interjecting "for fuck's sake" during a speech by
Senator Robert Hill. Despite his reputation as a negotiator he was widely reputed to be in possession of a short-temper with a particular intolerance for elected representatives of the
Australian Greens
The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, are a confederation of Green state and territory political parties in Australia. As of the 2022 federal election, the Greens are the third largest political party in Australia by vote and t ...
.
Evans ran into significant controversy on two major issues: relations with Indonesia over
East Timor and
French Nuclear Tests in the
Pacific. Evans continues to be strongly criticised by many commentators – most prominently
Noam Chomsky and
John Pilger
John Richard Pilger (; born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York.
Pilger ...
– for supporting Australia's recognition of Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor following its
military invasion in 1975, negotiating (and celebrating "replete with champagne") with then Indonesian Foreign Minister
Ali Alatas
Ali Alatas ( ar, علي العطاس '; 4 November 193211 December 2008) was an Indonesian diplomat of Ba 'Alawi sada descent, who served as the country's foreign minister from 1988 to 1999. He was Indonesia's longest serving foreign minister.
...
the
Timor Gap Treaty, and describing the 1991
Dili massacre
The Santa Cruz massacre (also known as the Dili massacre) was the murder of at least 250 East Timorese pro-independence demonstrators in the Santa Cruz cemetery in the capital, Dili, on 12 November 1991, during the Indonesian occupation of Ea ...
as "an aberration, not an act of state policy". Evans has replied at length to these charges in various forums, acknowledging that the Indonesian military's behaviour had been appalling and conceding that Australia had been too optimistic about its capacity for redemption, but arguing, that
de jure recognition by Australian (and other) governments had never denied the continuing right of the East Timorese to self-determination; that he personally had worked hard (as subsequently acknowledged by
José Ramos-Horta
José Manuel Ramos-Horta (; born 26 December 1949) is an East Timorese politician currently serving as president of East Timor since May 2022. He previously served as president from 20 May 2007 to 20 May 2012. Previously he was Ministry of Fore ...
) to achieve real autonomy for East Timor as the only realistic option before the events of 1997; and that independent East Timor had fully inherited the benefits of the Timor Gap Treaty. The Timor Gap Treaty was replaced by the Timor Sea Treaty after East Timor's independence in 2002. However, after the
Australia-East Timor spying scandal came to light, East Timor terminated the treaties, which were favorable to Australia. In 2018, the treaty in force today was concluded, which is far more favorable to East Timor.
When in June 1995 the resumption of French underground nuclear tests at
Moruroa Atoll was announced, Evans generated a storm of press and public criticism for remarking that while Australia deplored the decision "it could have been worse". This was strictly accurate as the test series was limited in number, and France promised to then permanently close the test facility and join the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty negotiations, but it politically damaged Evans and his party.
Leader of the government in the Senate, 1993–1996
In 1993, as a member of the Keating government, Senator Evans became Leader of the Government in the Senate,
replacing the retiring
John Button John Button may refer to:
Politicians
*John Button (Australian politician)
* John Bolton (Haverfordwest MP) (by 1524–56 or later), or John Button, English politician, MP for Haverfordwest
*John Button (1624–1679)
John Button (1624 – ...
, whose Deputy he had been since 1987. In this position he led the government's domestic legislative agenda in the upper house, where the government did not have a majority, and every bill had to be negotiated with the minor parties. In what was described at the time as "perhaps the finest moment in his political career", he played the leading role in getting the government's
Native Title Act 1993 through the Senate in one of the Parliament's longest-ever debates following the High Court of Australia's decision in ''
Mabo v Queensland''.
Return to opposition, 1996–1999
Evans had long desired to move from the Senate to the
House of Representatives, where he hoped to pursue leadership ambitions. His first attempt to do so, in 1984, had been thwarted by the
Socialist Left faction, but in 1996 he gained endorsement for the seat of
Holt
Holt or holte may refer to:
Natural world
*Holt (den), an otter den
* Holt, an area of woodland
Places Australia
* Holt, Australian Capital Territory
* Division of Holt, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives in Vic ...
, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, and was elected at the
1996 election. He was elected Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, defeating
Simon Crean
Simon Findlay Crean (born 26 February 1949) is an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was the Member of Parliament for Hotham from 1990 to 2013, representing the Labor Party, and served as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke, Keating, ...
, and appointed Shadow Treasurer by Leader
Kim Beazley
Kim Christian Beazley (born 14 December 1948) is an Australian former politician and diplomat. He was leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and leader of the opposition from 1996 to 2001 and 2005 to 2006, having previously been a cabinet ...
. As Deputy Leader Evans led a major policy review in every shadow portfolio area, and during 1997 orchestrated in secret the defection to the Labor Party of the popular leader of the
Australian Democrats
The Australian Democrats is a centrist political party in Australia. Founded in 1977 from a merger of the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement, both of which were descended from Liberal Party dissenting splinter groups, it was Austral ...
, Senator
Cheryl Kernot, who resigned from the Senate in October and became a Labor House of Representatives candidate at the
1998 election. The political triumph of the defection was, however, soured by the later revelation – by
Laurie Oakes in his column in ''
The Bulletin'' in 2002 – that Evans and Kernot had been having an affair at the time.
Evans, after eighteen years in the Senate, found the transition to the very different lower house environment not easy to manage, and – with Australia sailing comfortably through the
1997 Asian financial crisis
The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East Asia and Southeast Asia beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1 ...
– also found it difficult to get traction with his own economic policy brief. He also did not enjoy the move to opposition after thirteen years in government, coining the expression "relevance deprivation syndrome", which – while he was criticised more than applauded for his honesty at the time – is now entrenched in the national vocabulary. His biographer, Keith Scott, commented that "Overwhelmingly, Evans's period as deputy leader and shadow treasurer – from March 1996 to October 1998 – was his least successful in federal parliament". Labor's defeat at the 1998 election led to Evans's resignation from the opposition front bench, and in September 1999 he resigned from Parliament causing a
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
, which was later won by Labor candidate
Anthony Byrne.
Throughout his time as a member of both houses of Parliament, Evans served in three of the four leadership positions, deputy Senate leader, Senate leader and deputy leader in the House of Representatives.
International activity after politics
International Crisis Group
In 1994, while Foreign Minister of Australia, Evans committed his government to donate $500,000 as initial funding for
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
-based conflict prevention and resolution organisation, the
International Crisis Group.
From 2000–2009 Evans was president and CEO of the ICG, which during his tenure grew in staff from 25 to over 130, in budget from $US2 million to over $15 million, and in operating area from a handful of countries in the Balkans and Central Africa to over 60 across four continents, and published 784 worldwide-distributed reports.
Crisis Group made important contributions during this period in early-warning bellringing in cases like
Darfur
Darfur ( ; ar, دار فور, Dār Fūr, lit=Realm of the Fur) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju ( ar, دار داجو, Dār Dājū, links=no) while ruled by the Daju ...
and
Ethiopia-Eritrea, supporting conflict mediation in situations like
Southern Sudan
South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Con ...
, Kosovo War, Kosovo and Aceh, making path-breaking recommendations on Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israel-Palestine, Iran and Burma/Myanmar, analysing the different strands of Islamism, and generally providing timely and detailed field-based analysis and recommendations to policymakers on hundreds of separate conflict-related issues.
Although subject to occasional attack for the positions it has taken, Crisis Group was firmly established by the time of Evans's departure, and has remained, the preeminent international NGO working on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict, praised by leaders across the spectrum from Condoleezza Rice to Hillary Clinton, and regularly being identified as one of the world's most influential think tanks.
International panels and commissions
In 2000–2001 Evans co-chaired, with Mohamed Sahnoun, the
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was an ad hoc commission of participants which in 2001 worked to popularize the concept of humanitarian intervention under the name of "Responsibility to protect". The Commis ...
(ICISS), appointed by the government of Canada to address the issue of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes, which published its report, ''The Responsibility to Protect'', in December 2001. He was a member of the High Level Threat Panel, UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, whose report ''A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility'', addressing mass atrocity crimes and many other UN reform issues, was published in December 2004. Evans also serves on the UN United Nations Secretary-General, Secretary-General's Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention.
On nuclear issues, he was a member of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction sponsored by Sweden and chaired by Hans Blix which reported in June 2006; and the Commission of Eminent Persons on The Role of the IAEA to 2020 and Beyond, chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, whose report ''Reinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity'' was launched in June 2008. From 2008 to 2010 he co-chaired (with former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi) the Australia and Japan sponsored
International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament: its report ''Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers'' was published in December 2009.
Evans had previously served as a member of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (1994–97), co-chaired by Cyrus Vance and David Hamburg. He was also a member of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods, sponsored by Sweden and France and chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, which reported in September 2006.
He is a member of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative Advisory Council, a project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis to establish the world's first treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.
Other organisations
His other recorded affiliations with internationally focused organisations include:
* Asia Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN), Convenor
* Asia Society, Member of the Global Council
* Aspen Strategy Group, Aspen Ministers Forum (chaired by Madeleine Albright), Member
* Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, Aurora Prize, Member of the Selection Committee (since 2015)
* Australian Institute of International Affairs, Fellow
* Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Chair of the International Advisory Board
* Global Leadership Foundation, Member
* Global Panel Foundation-Australasia, Member of the Board of Advisors
* Independent Diplomat, Member of the Advisory Council
* Institute for Economics and Peace, Member of the International Advisory Board
* International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, Member of the Supervisory Council
* Nuremberg International Human Rights Award, Member of the Jury
* World Economic Forum (WEF), Member of the Global Agenda Council on Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons
Global Panel Member of Global Panel Worldwide
Academic career and published writing
Before entering Australian politics Evans was a lecturer, then senior lecturer, in law at the
University of Melbourne, teaching constitutional and civil liberties law, crime and torts, from 1971 to 1976. In 2009, after his retirement from politics and his subsequent career as head of the International Crisis Group, he returned to academic life as an honorary professorial fellow (later professorial fellow) in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, teaching a graduate course on international policymaking in practice in 2011 and 2012.
He was elected as chancellor of the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
from 1 January 2010, replacing
Kim Beazley
Kim Christian Beazley (born 14 December 1948) is an Australian former politician and diplomat. He was leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and leader of the opposition from 1996 to 2001 and 2005 to 2006, having previously been a cabinet ...
following Beazley's appointment as Australian Ambassador to the United States. Evans was installed by Governor-General Quentin Bryce at a ceremony in Canberra on 18 February 2010.
He is also an Honorary Fellow of
Magdalen College
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the ...
, Oxford; a Distinguished Fellow of the Australia India Institute; Chair of the International Advisory Board of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament; and Member of the Advisory Boards of the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy and Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, and the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.
Evans has written or edited 13 books, most recently ''Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir'' (Melbourne University Press, 2017). His other major works include ''The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All'' (Brookings Institution Press, September 2008, paperback edition 2009), which was awarded an Honorable Mention in the US Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award 2009 as one of the best three books on international relations published in the previous year, as well as ''Australia's Foreign Relations'' (with Bruce Grant (writer), Bruce Grant, Melbourne University Press 1991, 2nd ed 1995), ''Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s'' (Allen & Unwin, 1993), ''Australia's Constitution'' (with John McMillan (public servant), John McMillan and Haddon Storey, Allen & Unwin, 1983) and the edited collection, ''Labor and the Constitution'', 1972–1975 (Heinemann, 1977). He co-edited the annual ''Labor Essays'' series from 1980 to 1982.
Evans has also published nearly 150 chapters in books, monographs and articles in refereed and other journals – and many more newspaper and magazine articles – on foreign relations, politics, human rights and legal reform.
Contributions to international relations thinking
The responsibility to protect
The core idea of the responsibility to protect (often abbreviated as "R2P" or "RtoP"), as endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit, is that every state has the responsibility to protect its population from genocide and other mass atrocity crimes; the international community has a responsibility to assist the state if it is unable to protect its population on its own; and that if the state fails to protect its citizens from mass atrocities and peaceful measures have failed, the international community has the responsibility to intervene with appropriate measures, with coercive military intervention, approved by the UN United Nations Security Council, Security Council, available as a last resort. The concept was expressly designed to supersede the idea of "humanitarian intervention", which had failed to generate any international consensus about how to respond to the 1990s catastrophes of Rwandan genocide, Rwanda, Bosnian Genocide, Bosnia and Kosovo War, Kosovo.
Evans has been widely acknowledged as playing a crucial role in initiating, and advocating the international acceptance of, the concept, first as Co-Chair of the
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was an ad hoc commission of participants which in 2001 worked to popularize the concept of humanitarian intervention under the name of "Responsibility to protect". The Commis ...
which introduced the expression in its 2001 report of that name, and subsequently as a member of the UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, Co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (non-governmental organization), Global Centre on the Responsibility to Protect, and as the author of the Brookings Institution-published ''The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All'' and many other published works. He has made innumerable speeches and presentations on the issue, including in July 2009 participating at the United Nations General Assembly in an interactive dialogue with Noam Chomsky.
Good international citizenship
Evans introduced the idea of "good international citizenship" in his first major speeches as Australian foreign minister, and repeated and refined it in subsequent writing. The core notion was that "being, and being seen to be, a good international citizen" should be seen not as the "foreign policy equivalent of boy-scout good deeds", but as a distinct component of any country's national interest, "quite distinct from the familiar duo of security and economic interests":
The interest in question here is more than just the pleasure of basking in approbation. There are many direct reciprocal benefits to be gained in a world where no country can solve all its own problems: my assistance for you today in solving your drugs and terrorism problem might reasonably lead you to be more willing to help solve my environmental problem tomorrow. But the reputational benefit does also count. The perception of being a country willing to take principled stands for other than immediately self-interested reasons does no harm at all – as the Scandinavians in particular seem to have well understood – when it comes to advancing one's own commercial or political agendas.
The concept of "good international citizenship" has been specifically attributed to Evans in academic writing; its "idealistic pragmatism" has been seen as a way of bridging or transcending rival doctrines of realism and idealism in international relations theory; and the idea has been advanced as mapping a possible "third way for British foreign policy".
Niche diplomacy
"Niche diplomacy" was identified by Evans as one of the characteristic methods of the larger and more familiar concept of middle power diplomacy which has traditionally characterized the approach to international relations of Canada (especially during the Lester B. Pearson, Pearson years) and Australia (especially under the Labor governments of Hawke, Keating and Kevin Rudd, Rudd). He defined it as "concentrating resources in specific areas best able to generate returns worth having, rather than trying to cover the field. By definition, middle powers are not powerful enough in most circumstances to impose their will, but they may be persuasive enough to have likeminded others see their point of view, and to act accordingly". The concept is now familiar in academic discourse, and has been specifically attributed to Evans.
Cooperative security
Evans won the 1995 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order (following Mikhail Gorbachev the year before) for his fall 1994 ''Foreign Policy'' article, "Cooperative Security and Intra-State Conflict", which was cited as presenting ideas that, following the end of the Cold War "could quicken the process ... to help maintain a new world order". He described "cooperative security" as being a single conceptual theme that effectively captured the essence of three more familiar concepts in international security discourse, viz. comprehensive security, common security and collective security. Its defining – and attractive – characteristics were that "the term tends to connote consultation rather than confrontation, reassurance rather than deterrence, transparency rather than secrecy, prevention rather than correction, and interdependence rather than unilateralism".
Honours and awards
On 11 June 2012, Evans was named a Companion of the Order of Australia for "eminent service to international relations, particularly in the Asia Pacific Region as an adviser to governments on a range of global policy matters, to conflict prevention and resolution, and to arms control and disarmament." He had previously been made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2001 for "service to the Australian Parliament, particularly through advancing Australia's foreign policy and trade interests, especially in Asia and through the United Nations", and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of Laws by the University of Melbourne in 2002, Carleton University in 2005, the University of Sydney in 2008 and Queen's University at Kingston, Queen's University Ontario in 2010. In October 2005 he and the International Crisis Group were named European and Asian "Heroes of 2005". In July 2008, he was selected as an inaugural fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in recognition of his "outstanding contribution to Australian international relations". In May 2010 he was awarded the 2010 Roosevelt Institute Four Freedoms Award for Freedom from Fear for his pioneering work on the responsibility to protect concept and his contributions to conflict prevention and resolution, arms control and disarmament. In October 2011, he was presented by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, led by Sam Nunn and Ted Turner, the Amartya Sen Award "for intrepid and creative leadership in creating momentum toward a world free of nuclear weapons". In December 2011 ''Foreign Policy'' magazine cited him, along with Francis Deng, as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2011 "for making 'the responsibility to protect' more than academic".
Earlier in his career he was designated Australian Humanist of the Year in 1990 by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies, won the ANZAC Peace Prize in 1994 for his "leadership role in the Cambodian Peace Process", was awarded in 1995 the prestigious University of Louisville $150 000 Grawemeyer Award, Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Improving World Order for his 1994 ''Foreign Policy'' article "Cooperative Security and Intrastate Conflict", and in 1999 received the Order of the Merit of Chile, Chilean Order of Merit (Grand Officer) for his work in initiating APEC.
In April 2007, Evans gave a lecture entitled "Preventing Mass Atrocities: Making 'Never Again' a Reality" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series.
In 2012 Evans was elected an honorary fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Personal life
Evans has been married since 1969 to Professor Merran Evans, of Monash University, with whom he has two adult children. They have four grandchildren.
In 2002, Evans admitted to having an extramarital relationship with
Cheryl Kernot.
He has been a lifelong supporter, and was during his time in Australian government a special patron, of the Hawthorn Football Club. His other stated leisure interests are reading and writing, travel, architecture, opera and golf.
Books
*''Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir'' (Melbourne University Press, 2017)
*''Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play 2015'' (with Ramesh Thakur and Tanya Ogilvie-White co-authors), Canberra, Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, 2015
*''Inside the Hawke-Keating Government: A Cabinet Diary'' (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2014)
*''Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play'' (with Ramesh Thakur co-ed), Canberra, Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, 2013
*''The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All'' (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008)
*''Australia's Foreign Relations'' (with Bruce Grant), Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2nd ed. 1995
*''Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s and Beyond'', Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1993
*''Australia's Constitution (''with John McMillan and Haddon Storey), Law Foundation of NSW & Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1983
*''Labor Essays 1982: Socialist Principles and Parliamentary Government'' (with John Reeves co-ed.), Melbourne, Drummond, 1982
*''Labor Essays 1981'' (with John Reeves and Justin Malbon co-eds), Melbourne, Drummond, 1981
*''Labor Essays 1980'' (with John Reeves co-ed.), Melbourne, Drummond, 1980
*''Law, Politics and the Labor Movement'' (ed.), LSB, Melbourne, 1980
*''Labor and the Constitution, 1972–1975'' (ed.), Melbourne, Heinemann, 1977
[Gareth Evans official website "Publications by Gareth Evans" at https://www.gevans.org/pubs.html]
References
External links
Gareth Evanspersonal website
Profileat
International Crisis Group, 2009
Profileat the United Nations, October 2003
Column archiveat Project Syndicate
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Lecture transcript and video of Zinni's speech at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at the University of San Diego, April 2007*https://globalpanel.org - Board of advisors, Global Panel Worldwide
{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Gareth
1944 births
Living people
20th-century Australian politicians
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
Attorneys-General of Australia
Australian barristers
Australian diplomats
Australian humanists
Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia
Labor Right politicians
Australian ministers for Foreign Affairs
Australian King's Counsel
Australian republicans
Chancellors of the Australian National University
Companions of the Order of Australia
Delegates to the Australian Constitutional Convention 1998
Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
Government ministers of Australia
Keating Government
Lawyers from Melbourne
Melbourne Law School alumni
Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Holt
Members of the Australian House of Representatives
Members of the Australian Senate for Victoria
Members of the Australian Senate
Members of the Cabinet of Australia
People educated at Melbourne High School
Politicians from Melbourne
Quarterly Essay people
20th-century King's Counsel
21st-century King's Counsel
Responsibility to protect
Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award